


Dear Bruce

by Merixcil



Series: Tumblr Fics [83]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Class Issues, Epistolary, F/M, Hero Worship, M/M, Murder-Suicide, Obsessive Behavior, One-Sided Attraction, Poverty, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:34:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24233668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: People write to Bruce Wayne all the time. Sometimes he even replies.
Relationships: Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne, Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel
Series: Tumblr Fics [83]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759627
Comments: 20
Kudos: 56





	Dear Bruce

Dear Mr Wayne

I hope you got my last letter; I wrote to you a couple of months back but never heard anything. I get it, you’re a busy guy and my handwriting’s lousy. If you did want to chat, I’ve left my number and email address on the back of this sheet. I’d really like to pick your brains sometime, one Gothamite to another.

I saw on the old twitter-sphere that you’ve gone and picked yourself up a kid from one of those famous Gotham orphanages. I grew up in one and trust me, you did that kid a favour. The nuns at the place I was at were handsy, if you catch my drift.

My girlfriend’s been saying that we should adopt. She can’t have a sprog of her own on account of the penis. She’s transgender, but you’d never think to look at her, with all the work she’d had done. I’m not so sure that we should be raising kids though, I don’t mind admitting that I’ve got a bit of a temper and I reckon I’d just scare them.

Every time I see you on TV I start thinking of that shit with your parents, I know it was twenty years ago and you probably don’t like to be reminded of it but I’ve always felt like we were connected through that gunshot. See, I never knew my folks, apparently something real bad happened to them when I was small and now I’m all screwed up in the head as a result. Ha. Not that you’re screwed up in the head but I remember that Forbes interview where you talked about how you still have to go to therapy to cope with seeing your folks die and at the time I thought your therapist sounded much nicer than the one they sent me to as a kid. Give me a call sometime and we can compare notes.

I see you’ve been doing a lot of charity work recently. Very good, very on brand for you. You have a brand, right? Like you have people whose job is to tell you what will do the most good for your public perception? If I were you, I’d have people like that. Not that your ideas aren’t worth the price of VIP membership on their own. Those cables the firefighters use to jump between buildings in emergencies are fantastic, and the clothing you design is always to die for. I have two pieces of yours, the long black cape from the Autumn 2015 collection and a pair of boots from Spring 2012. I’d buy more but I really can’t afford it and the girlfriend has banned me from stealing anything new (Joking!).

I have all these great ideas for new products, like happy pills that really make you happy and a whole range of designer clown gags for high end kid’s parties. But hey ho, I guess there’s a reason that you’re the Jack of all trades billionaire and I’m putting my unemployment check towards the rent on a tenement basement in the East End.

This is all to say that I really admire your status as the favoured son of my hometown. You put that Musk cat to shame.

I can’t wait to hear back from you when you find the time.

Truly yours, your biggest fan

J

Dear Brucie

I still haven’t heard from you, which is fine, but it’s been a few months since my last letter and you’re always saying that it’s cool for your fans to try to get in touch. Next time maybe don’t make promises that you can’t keep. You might make me angry, and you won’t like me when I’m angry.

(Just a joke! Just a funny joke! I’m always making jokes, that’s my Thing. You’re a modern-day Leonardo, I make jokes. We make such a great double act.)

I went up to New York when you went on Jimmy Fallon back in January, waited out in the fucking snow after the show to meet you and you just ignored me. I’m not gonna lie, that shit stung. I gave up a big part of my day for you and I wasn’t the only one. Maybe you only stop for folks when you’re in Gotham, but you never seem to play gigs in Gotham anymore. I see Wayne Tower and I gotta wonder if you even work there. Do you? Do you even work or are you just jetsetting about the place and letting your stock portfolio do the heavy lifting?

I’m sorry, that was mean. But I’m not the only one asking. It’s ok Brucie, you can tell me. It must be hard to have so much money that all you have to worry about is spending it.

Not to get all morbid on you, but I was crossing a bridge on my way home. I forget which one, there are so many bridges in Gotham. I looked down into the water and wondered what it would be like to jump. Then I remembered when you abseiled from down Wayne Tower just to demonstrate the power of those new suction cups you were about to release were. At the time I thought it was so cool that you had that much faith in your product but looking down from that bridge I had to wonder if you were sure at all. Maybe the possibility of falling is what made you do it. You don’t exactly have to wrestle with risk otherwise.

My girlfriend’s nagging me to finish this letter and go eat dinner. Between you and me, she can’t cook for shit but she’s better than me so what do I have to complain about? She thinks I talk about you too much and she doesn’t like that I’ve put your picture up all over our apartment. It’s so silly because she thinks she knows me like you do, she thinks I know her like I know you. Can you imagine?

I gotta go. You really do need to call me sometime, though. You’ll never lose a fan like me again.

Sincerely yours

J

Ps – If you were open to the idea, there’s a great little bar just down the road from me. We could get chatting over a drink or two sometime, then see where the evening takes us, if you catch my drift.

Dear Mr Fancy-Pants-in-the-High-Castle. Mr Man-with-the-Gargoyles-Tacked-onto-the-Wall-Outside-His-Office. Mr Dark-Fucking-Mysterious-Whats-His-Face

In case you can’t tell, I’m pissed. The electricity bounced because neither me nor the old ball and chain can get ourselves a job, I just got another flood of patent rejections through the door and still no fucking letter from you. Meanwhile, what are you doing? Giving money to starving kids in Africa? There’s starving adults in Gotham, shitheal. How many people in this country could you feed if you used your money responsibly? Oh, good for you! You adopt down on their luck kids from homeless shelters or whatever. You really expect me to believe that you couldn’t just buy out every orphanage in the city and set every waif and stray from here to Tricorner up in half decent accommodation? You could get hundreds of kids our of a fucking Victorian standard of living in the space of an afternoon but oh no, you go for the photo op every time.

This is going to be the last letter I ever send you so I hope you’re enjoying it. I know you’ve been getting my letters because I’ve been double stamping them and printing off address labels so no one can say they got lost in the post due to my bad handwriting. We’re all busy from time to time but six months since my last letter and I haven’t heard diddly squat. You didn’t even have to write a whole essay, I wouldn’t have minded. You could have called, or texted. Hell, I’d accept a carrier pigeon from your great and good highness. Or, I would have done, but you missed your chance.

So, how’s this for a plan: I’m getting myself nice and limbered up on the good Scotch, then I’m going to take the gun given to me by my good friend Joe Chill and stuff it down the back of my pants. Then I’ll take my girlfriend to Robinson Park, cause a bit of a scene, shoot her and then shoot myself. I’ll make front page on every national newspaper and most of the major blogs. Jimmy Fallon might even mention me on his next show. 

If you didn’t quite catch that, I said I’m friends with Joe Chill. Have been since I was a kid. I guess that’s one of the reasons that I’m so obsessed with you, seeing as how he killed your parents and all.

The girlfriend won’t stop crying. She thinks not being to pay the bills is the worst thing that can happen to a person. You and I know better though, right Brucie? People can’t become their best selves till they’ve been broken down so far they have no option but to rebuild. She’ll never get that far, of course, so maybe she does have something to cry about.

If you just so happened to be heading out for an evening stroll by the park and felt like sweeping me off my feet, I might change my mind about the whole murder/suicide thing.

I really ought to get going. I don’t think I’ll post this, but if the police are feeling generous they might send it to you after I’m dead. I don’t think this letter presents me in a very flattering light, though, and I want you to remember me as I was in my prime. You get that, right?

Goodbye forever you useless sack of shit

Yours in eternal loathing

J

Dear J

You shall have to tell me what the initial stands for, sometime.

I’m so sorry that I was unable to respond to your missives sooner. I appreciate that it’s frustrating for fans to hear that I’m accepting mail and then have me go silent on them. I assure you, you are not the only person I have had to disappoint and I do feel terrible about it. I have enclosed an autographed Wayne Enterprises t-shirt with this letter which I hope will make up for how lax I’ve been.

Truth be told, I wasn’t expecting any fans to be waiting for me after such a long post-recording cool down when I was in New York for Jimmy’s show. I panicked and headed straight for my car. I hope I don’t sound too pompous when I say that you have to become famous to understand how draining it is to be surrounded by people who always want to see you on your best behaviour. On that evening, I had to put myself first and I apologise if you felt at all short-changed by my behaviour.

I can’t pretend that I didn’t enjoy the adrenaline rush of my abseil down Wayne Tower, but I assure you, I had full faith in the product. It sounds like you may have some unresolved issues regarding your parents’ death and that your current financial situation is not helping. J, I understand that therapy can be expensive but if you would accept the help, I’d be happy to cover the cost of some treatment. Mental health is so important, and we must all strive to treat ourselves kindly on this front. I think that therapy might also help with these romantic feelings you appear to have for me. I’m flattered, of course, but I assure you I do not make a good boyfriend.

I hope you and your girlfriend are finding ways to stay afloat. I hope you treat her well, J, I really do. Love is such a wonderful thing but it’s unfortunately easy to misuse it or mistreat the people who give it to us. The recent incident in Robinson Park has been on my mind a lot this past week, and how cruel it seems that a man could have killed himself and a woman he apparently cared for so deeply. I would hate to think that you were entertaining any similar thoughts.

Various legal barriers prevent me from calling or emailing fans directly, but if you are interested in my offer to cover the costs of any therapy you may need, please do write me back. I promise I will be quicker on the uptake this time. Once I have confirmation from yourself I can set something up with my assistant.

Wishing you all the best

Bruce.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired/rather heavily based on [Stan by Eminem ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hfMtY)
> 
> This fic was originally posted on my [tumblr](https://jeffersonhairpie.tumblr.com/). You can also find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/chadfuture_)
> 
> Comments are love!


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